


lovers (only exist through folklore)

by FrankIin



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25883752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrankIin/pseuds/FrankIin
Summary: ‘we could be something, don’t you think? you and me. something remarkable.an evening confession leads to a tumultuous series of events as lucille attempts to navigate her feelings for her best friend
Relationships: Delia Busby/Patsy Mount, Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	lovers (only exist through folklore)

**Author's Note:**

> yes this is inspired by taylor swift’s folklore. no, am not okay.

  
  
  


When Lucille Anderson was very young and she would get very scared her whole body would freeze and she would forget to breathe. 

After a tumble down the stairs as an infant her momma found her, stiff, wide-eyed, and not taking a single breath. Terrifying, it was, for her mother and so she coached Lucille to trick her mind into finding breath once afraid. Whimsical tales of a princess and a dragon were the key. 

_ Little Lucy,  _ her momma would say.  _ When that princess stared that dragon down, she was so terribly frightened. His bulging eyes held nothing but fire, destruction, death. It paralysed her, that fear, it made her forget that she was holding the sword to slay him.  _

_ Do you know what she did, Lucy? _ Her momma would ask.  _ She breathed in and counted to five. And then breathed out. The princess counted to five once more and then she lunged.  _

Inhale. Count to five. Exhale. Count to five.

Oftentimes, she would recall these lessons and her fear would bring with it deep, powerful breaths to calm her. Make her think rationally. Make her the best port of call in a downright awful situation. It’s why her parents and friends encouraged her to sail to England to be a nurse. No one they knew quite had a head on them like that Anderson girl. 

Inhale. Count to five.

_ Did she kill the dragon, momma? _ Lucille would reply.

_ Of course she did, precious _ . 

Funny, how the stories of our childhood become their own sort of church. 

Funny, moreover, how they can be set alight in one brief, tumultuous moment. 

Lucille Anderson stood, so very scared, outside the manor house at Crescent Farm. And Lucille forgot to breathe. 

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


Inhale. Count to five.

One.

“ _ Lucille, please _ ,” Valerie stepped closer, desperate, begging. Her hands were clasped tight together, in front of her chest, protecting the thudding heart rattling in her ribcage. Lucille could hear it. For her own heart mirrored it. 

Two. 

Lucille retreated, her body knocking into the refrigerator. The kitchen was cast in that midnight hue, lit only by the flickering filament above their heads. Outside, the raucous shouts of drunkards having found their way this end of town. These disturbances did not penetrate Nonnatus House. Fingers grappled at the chain around her neck. The crucifix. The Lord. 

Three.

Valerie stilled then, her hands were white. She’d grown as ghostly as the afternoon her grandmother passed. Cold, from the grief and the dripping ice cream. Lucille could see it. How her lips tinged blue. Frozen. A little bit of herself dying off too.

Four.

She croaked out a pitiful, “Lu, I’m sorry. I’m  _ so  _ sorry.” 

Those long, gentle fingers choked each other, as though restraining, pulling back from reaching out to Lucille. An instinct unlearned in one single moment.

Five.

Lucille exhaled. 

Withholding, her jaw clenching back any notion of outcry. In these moments, passion would not be kind. What Valerie had disclosed...it would be cruel. Her beliefs, her ethos, her way of life, they instructed a certain kind of behaviour of which Valerie’s confession rebelled against in every sense of the word.

She could not be cruel to Valerie. 

But she could not allow this to meander any more. 

With her commandments to guide her, Lucille raised a hand, palm towards Valerie, and bowed her head, “I-...Valerie, I can’t--”

Her gaze lifted up, to Valerie’s defeated expression; how her eyebrows had furrowed delicately, her chapped lips pressed together. Her own wonderfully vibrant eyes now vacant. Empty. 

“I understand,” Val turned those lips into a smile, though it did not transcribe to the rest of her features. 

She stepped back then, Valerie, ducked her head, and went to turn. In that moment, that turn away, it was as though a thread had snapped. The coarse rope that had been wrapped around them both from her humble stumbling through the doors many winters ago now, it had been fraying without her knowledge for sometimes. Those first few months, that first year, they had been inseparably attuned to each other, tangled in a friendship stronger than she’d ever had before. 

(Sister Monica Joan had spoken of an ancient oriental tale: a thin red string connecting two souls for eternity; no matter how far apart they began, the souls would always meet in the middle of that thin red string. She had stared at them both as she said this; blessed be their friendship.)

Then there had been Cyril, and atrocious crimes committed, and unfair deaths and suddenly there was no time for hot chocolates together, fish and chips on the steps outside. Lucille had felt it, the initial fraying of their rope, but how she had been so distracted to realise that it was Valerie instructing the pull away. 

To protect herself, she had said, protect her heart. 

_ But, Lu, I can’t...I can’t keep it inside anymore. We’d be good, I think, you and me.  _

And then, in her denial, that final thread keeping them together snapped. 

“You’re my dearest friend, Valerie, please don’t let this damage that,” Lucille said, eyes boring into the back of Valerie’s chest, trying to reach that rattling heart, prevented by the thick material of that godforsaken suit jacket. 

Valerie did not turn back around. Instead, she cocked her head to the side, and said: “It won’t.”

  
  


-

  
  


Not even three weeks later, Sister Julienne broke the bread at an evening meal to deliver the news that Valerie had taken her long overdue holiday allowance to visit Nurses Busby and Mount at their new home in Scotland. She was to take one month at least to help them out in their deprived clinic in Glasgow. Details were scant, she’d left that morning with one suitcase and her winter coat; a forwarding address was to be assumed from the last letter Delia had written to Phyllis. 

Lucille found her dinner lacked any sort of flavour after that. 

“I didn’t realise Valerie had been that close to Delia, let alone Patsy,” Trixie mused later that evening, taking a long drag of a so-called ‘much-earned’ cigarette. 

Lucille perched on Valerie’s bed, casting a scant glance to the photographs still tacked above her headboard. She felt out of place. Although close with Trixie, she was never the reason for her visits to this room. Always Valerie. Always some excuse. 

“Had she mentioned it to you?” Trixie probed. She shifted against her silk pillows, sitting up a little more as she tapped ash in the tray. 

“No, she...We’ve been so busy recently, I suppose she never had time to,” Lucille replied with a nonchalant shrug though it felt more forced than she would have liked. 

Her plea in the kitchen, to remain friends despite, had evidently been disregarded. 

“She  _ had _ been rather...Perhaps the fresh air will do her good,” Trixie stubbed the cigarette out. “Although, she could very well have had my godmother’s place in Italy instead of that freezing old house up in Scotland.”

Lucille frowned at that, “I didn’t realise you’d been to see Nurse Mount and Nurse Busby.”

“Mm,” Trixie smiled, as though some fond memory struck her in that moment. “Not soon after they’d moved in. No one had been in there since the twenties, Patsy enlisted my help to decorate. Of course if I’d have known  _ that _ was her motive for the invitation I may have been inclined to reply with a firm no.” She dissolved into a light laugh at that. 

Lucille had wondered, idly, quietly, in the moments of silence as Phyllis pondered over a newly arrived letter in their bedroom at night, the exact definition of the dynamic between Nurses Mount and Busby. She, along with the new nuns, hadn’t met either and it seemed as though the rest of the inhabitants of Nonnatus were privy to something in this respect that she had never had the chance to know. They were spoken of together, in most instances, and they’d travelled the world, settled down in Scotland. They had a dog together. No suitors, permanent or potential, had ever been brought up in the same breath as these nurses and Lucille hadn’t truly allowed herself to think as to why until this moment right now. 

“Trixie,” Lucille licked her lips, uncertain but needing. “Nurse Mount and Nurse Busby, they…”

Trixie stilled at that. She took pause, choosing her words carefully. Lucille watched how her tongue ran over her teeth as she did this. 

The hesitation was answer enough, the words irrelevant now. Lucille found that her fingers intertwined with each other, locked together like Val’s had that night. Holding back some part of herself that was trying to reach out. 

“Lucille, I can’t answer what you’re going to ask,” Trixie said, earnest, honest. She kept her voice level, gentle, as she warned, “And you shouldn’t think to ask it again.”

Lucille nodded, “I understand.”

Trixie observed her then, in that way she often did when struggling with a conundrum be it the daily crossword or some new issue at the clinic. Her eyes squinted, chin jutting out just slightly. Lucille only tightened her fingers. 

“They made their peace,” She said, Trixie, after that pregnant pause. “I shall think Valerie will find it with them.”

A short, stiff nod, and then, as though the moment hadn’t happened, Trixie reclined back into her pillows and thumbed through a battered  _ Breakfast at Tiffany’s _ . 

Lucille left. 

  
  


-

  
  


The strain of Nurse Dyer’s vacation was felt by all, but grumbles from Sister Frances or Trixie were silenced by sharp stares from Sister Julienne or Phyllis. They muscled on, as they always had, pulling long hours and compensating for their missing mate. It was undisclosed understanding now, between everyone at Nonnatus, that holiday loosely translated to sabbatical break. 

Lucille had seen Cyril only once since that night in the kitchen with Valerie. The day after, she’d turned up as his lodgings and crossed a line she’d always planned to wait for. After marriage, as she had been taught. After that, excuses came easy and Valerie’s departure only served to supply her with more. 

On the night’s she could have seen him, she spent in chapel instead, lingering behind the Order as though a ghost in her own home. 

_ I think I was born meaning to love you, because it doesn’t make sense otherwise. Like Sister Monica Joan said: red string ties us together. Like it was inevitable we’d find each other in all this.  _

Was it truly possible? Their fates intertwined as such? Was it an act of God that brought them to each other? Written in the stars that she would be needed in London, that Valerie should be the one to open the door and patch her wounds, that Valerie would be brave when she was weak.

That Valerie could love her when Lucille couldn’t allow it. 

How could it be? Lucille would argue with herself as the Sisters sent up hymns. How could God decide her love for her? How could He orchestrate their existences to bring them together when the act of doing so was against His words? Against the laws of the world He created?

It was wrong, a sin, a criminal way of life. No way for a woman, a nurse, to live. No way. 

_ I know that I can’t ever give you peace; I can’t give you a marriage or—or a child. But I can give you my heart and I can promise to make you laugh every day so long as you look after it. And I’ll look after yours too.  _

Lucille’s eyes found the cross at the altar. And then she collapsed. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong besides that nasty cut to your head,” Doctor Turner said, frowning as his hands gripped the stethoscope around his neck. “But I want Nurse Crane waking you up every hour to make sure there’s no concussion.”

“Of course, Doctor,” came Phyllis’ worried affirmation from where she perched on her bed. 

Lucille gave a forced smile, sitting up in her bed slightly. The thudding pain her head made her squint. She could just about make out the concerned lingerings of Trixie and Sister Julienne at the door. 

Doctor Turner was still watching her, concerned, “I’d like you to come into the surgery tomorrow so we can run some tests. I’m worried you might be anaemic.”

“That’s not necessary,” Lucille shook her head. “I...Held my breath a little too long. I sometimes forget to breathe when I’m stressed, the tiredness must have made me forget the coaching my mother gave me.”

His frown deepened at that, “Unusual stress response but not entirely unheard of, you’ve had this your whole life?”

“Yes.”

Phyllis was observing oddly. 

Doctor Turner sighed, “Well, I’d still like you to come in anyway so we can be certain.”

“Ten o’clock on the dot tomorrow morning,” Phyllis said over Lucille’s refusal. “I’m sure we’ll manage the twenty minutes.”

The hard stare determined a lack of argument. 

  
  


-

  
  


Lucille did not sleep. 

Once she’d been given the okay from Phyllis to attempt more than sixty minutes, she found her body could not settle. Instead, she was drawn back to the chapel. 

This time, she took a chair, right in front of the altar, and allowed herself the calm to pray. 

Valerie was queer. Yes, that much she could find it in herself to reconcile with. It was not a way of life she could condone but she could potentially learn to accept that fact about her friend. 

But Valerie loved her. She was  _ in love _ with her. That’s what she had said. In words laced with the heart of all the books Lucille had ever read, making her  _ feel more _ than those books ever did. 

More than Cyril had in words and touches. 

No. There may have lacked passion but Cyril was a man and that was reason enough to let him be the one to love her. 

She couldn’t let a woman love her, touch her. She couldn’t love a woman back, touch her back. 

It wasn’t possible. 

_ There’s no one else out there for me, Lu. It could only ever be you.  _

“Your trouble breeds in these walls like rabbits in their time of season,” came the drawls of Sister Monica Joan as she sat down next to her. “I can see them multiplying beyond contention. Have you considered neutering them?”

Lucille turned to her, “Forgive me, Sister, but matters of the heart can’t easily be neutered. I’ve been trying.”

“Ah,” a hand was placed on top of hers, a warming squeeze given. “Love, what is it?”

_ You’re the most wonderful, amazing, beautiful person I’ve ever met _ . 

“I think I’m trying to figure that out myself,” Lucille sighed before casting a stare to the stained glass window. “Do you think that love can be boundless?”

_ I can’t stop it, can’t look at you and not feel like my heart is going to burst from how much I love you.  _

“Love does not exist in cages, held hostage by those who supervise it,” Sister Monica Joan said firmly. “It is limitless and it is free. Like stories from the aboriginals passed down through centuries. It may bend and it may warp but it will never lose its truth. My child, love is folklore. Tell me your story.”

_ I love you, Lu. Plain as day, I love you. _

Lucille sniffed, finding that tears had pooled in her eyes. She shook her head, “I can’t.”

Sister Monica Joan appeared to understand, somehow, what that entailed, for her following statement was thus:

“Love exists to break the laws of which those who have yet to experience it have cast in its way.”

_ We could be something, don’t you think? You and me. Something remarkable.  _

  
  


-

  
  


She was fine. As she had suspected, what troubled her was her heart, her mind. She fought to remember the lessons, the fables from her mother, as she trundled through the remaining days until Valerie’s return.

She’d called apparently, while Lucille had been out at birth. Sister Hilda had mentioned it over dinner, that Nurse Dyer was to return in a day or two. 

Lucille’s heart had thudded at that. 

In her prayers, her searchings, Lucille had become enamoured with the morality of loving women and had pushed aside the very notion that led her there in the first place. 

Valerie. 

How she had become a symbol of a new home, a welcoming warmth after an arduous day, the best co-conspirator in late night rum hot chocolates she could have ever wanted. 

Beyond that, she was kind. And she was gentle. And she was fearless. 

God, how it terrified Lucille, that there was truth in Valerie’s words, in Sister Monica Joan’s preachings. 

Invisible string binding them to the inevitable, binding  _ her  _ to the inevitable. 

Lucille ignored Cyril’s calls once more. 

  
  


-

  
  


Behind a green door in the West End sat an older woman smoking a cigarette and asking Lucille if it was her first time. 

The petrified look on her face must have triggered this. 

_ “I was on my...on my way, see, to a place for women like me,” Valerie’s hands shook unrelenting on the kitchen table. A waxed strand of hair fell before eyes. She didn’t move to fix it. “It’s in Soho. D—A friend told me about it and I’ve been going a few times a month. It’s good. Help-Helpful.” _

_ The light bounced on to the tailored suit jacket, the subtle pattern reflecting.  _

Lucille stepped — cautiously, shivering, alone — down the stairs into the bar. Soon, she was appraised by many women of a variety of different styles. Ignoring them, she sat at the bar. She could not stop shaking, focusing solely on breathing - remembering to breathe. 

A drink was placed in front of her. 

  
  


-

  
  


There had been an emptiness permeating every part of her being since that night in the kitchen. At first, it was simplicity she reckoned had disappeared, an endless bid for normalcy perhaps. 

But no. 

It was  _ Valerie _ and everything she was and everything she couldn’t be. 

That final snapped thread could not be irreparable. 

Lucille  _ could l _ ove her back. 

She loved her she loved her she loved her. 

  
  


-

  
  


Trixie found her.

A late night delivery must have called her away from the nest and upon returning her bike to the shed she discovered Lucille there, distraught and devastated on the ground. 

“ _ Oh, sweetie. _ ”

Trixie’s voice was addled with a compassion that she did not deserve. A hand, warm but not warm enough, was placed on her shoulder. She was pulled into a hug, right there on icy cobbled ground. Trixie stroked her hair. 

“I c-can’t—”

She could not enter the convent. Not after what she’d done. Done to Cyril, done to Valerie, done to herself. 

“I don’t know  _ who I am _ .”

“You’re not alone, Lucille, I’ve got you. I’m not leaving you.”

  
  


-

  
  


She slept in Valerie’s bed that night. The trip upstairs was missing from her memory, all that she truly recalled was pleading with Trixie that she mustn’t disturb Phyllis. 

Sometime around dawn, voices trickled through into her mind. Outside the bedroom, faintly, she could make out—

“She said she went  _ where _ ? _ ” _

Valerie. 

“I was told in the strictest confidence, Val, I know what clientele it serves. But I thought, as her best friend, you should know. She’s spiralling since you left. It appears to be more than a crisis of faith, it seems poor Lucille doesn’t know who she is anymore.”

“This is all my fault—”

“Valerie, we don’t have time for self-pity right now, Lucille has been hurting tremendously and she—She’s struggling too much right now.”

“Trixie, you don’t know—”

“Being queer and alone can cause some people to self destruct, it nearly happened once to someone I love, I’m not letting it happen to Lucille.”

Queer. Lucille squeezed her eyes shut. 

Hands. Lips. Fingers. Tongue. 

The pillow was pulled over her head,  _ how could she _ ?

Valerie. 

“I know but...Lu’s not…” She could hear Valerie sigh. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this.”

“There’s no one here but us; please have some faith in me, Val, Patsy’s my best friend.”

“I know. It’s just—Lucille’s not...She’s not  _ gay _ , alright?”

There was a vindication, a confidence, in Valerie’s voice that could not be ignored.

“She had sex with a woman last night, I hardly think that’s the actions of a heterosexual, is it?”

“She...what…?”

_ Oh Valerie. _

Lucille couldn’t breathe.

_ We could be something, don’t you think? You and me. Something remarkable.  _

  
  


-

  
  
  


She stayed in bed all day, wrapped up in those silk sheets and her own unrelenting shame. The pillow was pulled over her head against the rising and falling sun. 

An essence of Valerie surrounded her, her scent overbearing, replacing the stench of the other woman that lingered on her chin, her hands. 

But Valerie in herself was absent. Trixie had been in, her distinctive heel clickings softer than Valerie’s, and retrieved some of Val’s things for a bath and to get ready for the day. Tea and cheese sandwiches had been left at the bedside.

The world moved around her but Lucille couldn’t. How could she? She had changed, morphed into someone else. Someone she was supposed to be, decided that day an invisible string began to wrap around her, guiding her to her inevitable. 

Cyril had called round, worried. Phyllis sitting on Trixie’s bed had informed her. 

Lucille turned over to face the window. 

  
  


-

_ Lucille woke to the sound of a creaking floorboard outside in the hallway. This wasn’t unusual, of course, but it startled a need for the bathroom within her.  _

_ Quietly, as one does not to disturb Nurse Crane, Lucille left the room. However, as she turned on approach to the bathroom, a terrifying sight beheld her. A tall, thin man stood at the top of the stairs, frozen it seemed, as Lucille stared at him.  _

_ Inhale, Lucille spurred herself, and exhale. _

_ “Luc?” _

_ Wait. Lucille paused. The man stepped into the light. It wasn’t a man at all.  _

_ It was Valerie. _

_ In a tailored blue suit with her hair slicked back like some sort of greaser. A cigarette hung, as it often did, from her lips. Her eyes, how they were wide with fear. _

_ “Valerie?” Lucille whispered. She pulled her dressing gown tighter around herself, fending off the cold air of Nonnatus’ relentless draft. “Why are you dressed like--” _

_ Valerie, shaking, plucked the cigarette from her lips and tucked it away in a breast pocket. She stepped forward, “Fancy a cuppa?” _

  
  


-

  
  


Night came, and with it brought a thunderstorm from Valerie. 

Lucille had finally sat up upon her entrance into the room. Body weary, she rubbed her eyes as Valerie perched at the foot of the bed. Her face was as sullen as it had been that evening in the kitchen. Eyes sunken, lips chapped from nervous chewing, Valerie choked her fingers once more. 

Inhale. 

“How was Scotland?” She croaked out in question, forcing the smallest smile.

Valerie's jaw clenched, she swallowed thickly, “Good. Nice to visit it in a place that has consistent electricity.”

A nod from Lucille. 

Exhale.

The silence was not comfortable as it had always been. Rather, Lucille exhaled shakily, “I---”

“Do you--Was Trixie telling the truth?” Valerie asked sharply. Staring ahead, to her own photographs past Lucille’s head.

“I told her in confidence.”

Valerie scoffed, her eyes on fire now, meeting Lucille’s. “That’s not the  _ bloody _ point though is it, Lucille?” 

Inhale. 

“I was distressed. She offered me a ride home in her car. I didn’t---”

Fury, Valerie rose to her feet. She hardly ever allowed herself to get this truly angry. Lucille hadn’t seen her like this, not since the abortionists, not since her gran. Pacing wildly, she spat out:

“She took advantage of you, I’ll find her and I’ll  _ fucking kill her _ .”

“Valerie,” Lucille closed her eyes for a moment, gathering herself. She moved from the bed, weakly standing. “I hadn’t drunk more than half of a pint. It was--I--It was me that initiated it.”

Valerie shook her head, “No, no she’s--”

Exhale

“I wanted to see what it was...like,” Lucille placed a hand on her arm. Valerie deflated. “I had to--To make sense of...I needed to--I wanted to know if I could…”

Valerie stepped back, face falling into broken passivity, “Lu…”

“I shouldn’t have--”

“ _ I love you _ ,” Valerie’s voice broke on that final word. Just like it had done that night. Just like it had been replaying in Lucille’s mind ever since. “If you thought that...If you thought you could… you should have--”

Lucille reached for her again, but Valerie stepped back once more, “Valerie, precious…”

“Don’t,” Valerie crossed her arm over her chest, backing into the dresser under the mirror. “Don’t call me that. I  _ love _ you and you...”

“Valerie…”

“I can’t,” Valerie shook her head again. “I can’t look at you. I need to...”

Valerie left. 

  
  


-

  
  


Lucille broke two hearts that week, her own existing foreign to her. 

Cyril asked for an explanation she could not give.

Valerie mourned potential through empty stares and abandoned card games, long calls to Glasgow.

Lucille spent her free hours in the chapel or reading in silence with Sister Monica Joan. She avoided the keen, worried stares of Trixie, Phyllis, and the other nuns. Even little Angela Turner supplied her knees with a hug when she saw her. 

Lucille kept busy. Betty and The Gateways Club drowned in her memory. 

  
  


-

  
  


“Before we eat, this evening, please,” Sister Julienne began in that calm way she always did, hands flat on the table beside her plate. “I believe Nurse Dyer has some news she wishes to share with you all.”

Lucille snapped her stare from her lap over to Valerie opposite her.

Valerie nodded, standing from her chair. It creaked against the floor. She swallowed thick---

“I’m not one to make a song and dance about things so I’ll get to it,” Valerie said, slow, careful, deliberate. “I’ve loved every year I’ve worked here but it’s time for something new, never did really like to settle -- like you Phyllis,” A forced laugh, quick of the head to the aforementioned woman. Valerie cleared her throat, “I was offered a place as Head Nurse at a partner clinic to the one I helped out in Glasgow. And I’ve decided to take it. Effective immediately.”

She sat down in much a hurry and the air in Lucille’s world turned blue with Mercury. 

  
  


-

_ Lucille watched, eyebrows pinched together, and Valerie steadied her hands and poured the fresh tea from the pot into those two floral cups. She set the pot down. Did not touch the cup.  _

_ “I wasn’t supposed to—I didn’t mean to—“ Valerie licked her lips, nervous. She placed her hands flat, face down on the table as though steadying herself. “I don’t often dress like this.” _

_ “I know,” Lucille replied, voice timid, concerned. Valerie’s nerves unsettled her. The witching hour cued a certain tension in the air. “I’ve seen your half of the closet — dresses, pink things.” _

_ “I like ‘em, I do,” Valerie smiled. It faltered. “But sometimes I...I like to wear trousers and a nice blazer and—” _

_ “I thought you were a man,” Lucille said suddenly. “That’s why I gasped, I thought a man had broken in.” _

_ “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was on my...on my way, see, to a place for women like me,” Valerie’s hands shook unrelenting on the kitchen table. A waxed strand of hair fell before eyes. She didn’t move to fix it. “It’s in Soho. D—A friend told me about it and I’ve been going a few times a month. It’s good. Help-Helpful.” _

_ Lucille tilted her head, “Women who...fought in the war?” _

_ Valerie shook her head, “Lu...Lucille, I’m—Please promise me whatever I tell you tonight never leaves this table, please say I can trust you.” _

_ “Always.” _

_ “I’m queer, Lu.” _

  
  


_ - _

  
  
  


They’d prepared a sort of going-away party for Valerie -- so much for no song and dance -- and Lucille excused herself to Pastor Palmer’s prayer meeting for the majority of the celebration.

Valerie was perched on the steps outside with Trixie when she walked back up with her bike. Trixie stubbed out the cigarette upon seeing her and disappeared back into the convent. Valerie, it seemed, intended to follow her. 

“Valerie, please, wait,” Lucille cried, desperate. Valerie ignored her. Her bike fell to the floor as she dragged herself up the steps. “Please, wait.”

Valerie stilled, defeated, she asked, “Yeah, Lucille?”

“You shouldn’t be leaving your home because of me,” Lucille said, firm. “Nonnatus, Poplar, this is  _ your _ home. I should--If you can’t stand to be around me then I should be the one to go.”

“No,” Valerie replied, coolly. “Poplar is always going to be the place that I’m from, but it’s not my home. Not like it is for you now, Lu.” She shrugged, a loose effort to appear nonchalant but Lucille knew her well enough. “‘Sides, Patsy and Delia have that huge house all to themselves, big garden, think it’s what I need.”

“You’re going to live with--”

“For a while,” Valerie nodded, rocking on the balls of her feet. “They’ve got enough spare rooms.”

Lucille ran her tongue over her teeth, considering, “And that’s better than here?”

“Won’t have Trix throwing a pillow at my head for snoring that’s for sure.”

“Val.”

Valerie toed the ground, “I need to go, Lucille. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Lucille’s throat felt thick, tears pooled at her eyes, “We could be something, don’t you think?”

Valerie let out a pitiful whimper, “What do you want me to say to that?”

“I’m  _ trying _ .”

“You’ve ruined me.”

She left. 

  
  
  


-

  
  


Valerie left, with little fanfare on the actual day, a hood pulled over her head to fend from the rain. Before sunrise, with her two suitcases, she left in silence. 

Lucille had risen, just as she had previously, to a creak on the hallway floorboard. 

She’d ran to the window as Fred’s truck to her heart away. 

Phyllis rose at the sob that tore from her throat, holding her, trying to put her together again. 

_ We could be something, don’t you think? _

  
  


_ … _

  
  
  


_ I love you, Lu. Plain as day, I love you. _

  
  
  


-

  
  


She moved in with Trixie.

Mrs Turner rejoined Nonnatus full-time once more to take on the strain of Valerie’s departure as they awaited a new midwife. 

Lucille existed in a sort of chasm, caught in sleeplessness and sadness. A painful yearning tugged, and tugged, and tugged at her mind, hurting more than she ever thought possible. 

Days, months trundled on. 

Nonnatus faced closure once more. A sizable donation from an anonymous donor to the council was enough to fund them for five more years Sister Julienne supposed. They held a party to celebrate, Lucille stayed in her room, enthralled in Mrs Dalloway. 

That’s where Trixie found her, as the celebrations continued well into the evening. 

“Angela and May are asking for you, apparently Auntie Trix doesn’t tell stories half as good as Aunt Lulu,” Trixie grinned from the door. 

Lucille sent a smile to her but stayed immersed in her book. 

“Lucille, you’ve read that bookshelf three times over since she left and it’s only been ten months,” Trixie sighed with an eye roll as she made her way into the bedroom, careful to ensure the door was closed behind her. 

Lucille placed the book down, “I lost my best friend, Trixie.”

“She’s only up in Scotland not dea—“

“No. Before she left we...We drifted apart and now it’s too far to reach out,” Lucille ducked her head. “She hasn’t written to me, or—or asked to speak to me when she calls. She told me I ruined her. I-I ruined everything.”

_ We could be something, don’t you think? _

Trixie fell silent. 

Lucille wiped her eyes and returned to Mrs Dalloway, rereading that same sentence over and over. 

  
  


-

_ “I knew I was different - always. Put it down to being a bit of rough, you know. But in the army, there was this girl and, well, I started to think hard about what I wanted in life, the type of person I wanted to be, who I wanted to be  _ with _ ,” Valerie stared at her own hands as she spoke. “I know I can’t—In the daylight, so I go to Gateways and I drift between dresses and suits because it’s a safe space to do that.” _

_ Lucille had hardly moved. The tea, beside her own hands, had turned cold.  _

_ “Do you...Engage with women there? Do you go on dates?” She asked, caught in a whisper.  _

_ Valerie shook her head, “I just have a dance, a chat, I...My heart found another but there’s no chance there, so I go out and enjoy myself. Live my life once or twice a month. Makes the day bearable, Trixie asking about boys and...such.” _

_ Lucille reached over, to hold Val’s hand, “You say your heart found another, why would it…?” _

_ Valerie’s eyes snapped up to her’s and beneath them lay honesty she was unprepared for.  _

  
  


_ - _

  
  
  


When she woke the next morning, a note sat on her side table:

_ Don’t go with grace.  _

_ Call x _

A phone number was scribbled in Trixie’s loop script below. 

  
  


-

  
  


At the phone box behind the bridge, as snow danced along the cobbles, Lucille slid a half crown into the machine, clutching the phone close to her ear. 

_ “Mount residence - Crescent Farm.” _

“Hello, this is—this is Nurse Anderson from…”

The soft Scottish voice trickled through the phone, “ _ I’m sorry, dear, you’re going to have to speak up - the service goes awfully foggy when the winds hit _ .”

“I’m Nurse Anderson from Nonnatus House in Poplar.” Lucille repeated, firmly. “I was wondering if it would be possible to speak to Nurse Dyer, I believe she's staying there.”

“ _ I’m afraid Nurse Dyer is out on a work call with Nurse Busby at present, deary, Ms Mount is available, however.” _

“May I speak with her, please?”

“ _ Of course, please hold while I ring through to the study. _ ”

She didn’t know what drove her to agree to this, she’d never met Nurse Mount before. But something in her yearned to know Valerie was doing okay, and she supposed Nurse Mount could give her that. 

“ _ I know you love me, Trixie, but twice in one week will have Delia getting jealous _ ,” came a smirking, relaxed, cut glass accent that Lucille wasn’t expecting. “ _ Do you need me to quiz you on surgical procedure again?” _

Lucille cleared her throat, “Apologies, Nurse Mount, it’s not Trixie. I’m Nurse Lucille Anderson, I work with Trixie at Nonnatus.”

“... _ Rats, _ ” was muttered quietly. “ _ I should be the one to apologise Nurse Anderson, I’m afraid the housekeeper said it was one of the nurses on the phone—Trixie is...Well, the only one left I knew I suppose _ .  _ How may I help?” _

“I…” How does one answer when they don’t know themselves? “I asked for Valerie but your housekeeper said you were the only one—I don’t know...I’m sorry for wasting your time Nurse Moun—”

“ _ I’m actually not a nurse anymore, _ ” Patsy interrupted before she could hang up. “ _ And I must insist you call me Patsy _ .”

“Why aren’t you—?”

“ _ I’m back in medical school attempting to get my medical doctorate, such is life _ .  _ Trixie and I are in a race, I think I’ve managed to pull ahead though,”  _ Patsy answered casually. She paused. “ _ Nurse Anderson—” _

“Lucille, please.”

“ _ Lucille, if I may…I’ve often found that uncertainty makes us do reckless, harmful, downright stupid things. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt like a candle wick, burning away to some meaningless end guided in a direction others have decided for me. Once you break from that path of other people’s creation, what was once certain is now unachievable. And the realisation of that, in of itself, is enough to push anyone to breaking point. One searches for understanding, rationale, a new purpose in all sorts of wrong places. But once you find your footing and begin to create your own, it’s bloody fantastic.” _

Lucille leaned back, her red coat keeping her warm as she rested against frosted glass. She straightened the phone at her ear. 

“Are you happy, Patsy?”

“ _ Irrevocably _ .”

Lucille expelled a shaking breath. 

_ “Lucille, Delia’s thirtieth is coming up soon. Trixie is coming up, as her parents and brothers, for a little party at the end of the month. I know the Winter months are busy for you down there but I would be honoured if you came _ ,” Patsy’s tone was kind, genuine. 

“Patsy, I’ve never even met yourself or Nurse Busby, I wouldn’t want to impose,” Lucille replied, sighing. “It should be a family affair.”

“ _ Blood isn’t the only way to define family,”  _ Patsy retorted, lacing it with meaning. She yawned. “ _ As Delia would say - the film doesn’t end when you think it has, you must wait until the lights come up. Please visit with Trixie, I implore you.” _

  
  


-

  
  


Lucille stood before the large blue door of the Crescent Farm Manor House with Trixie’s hand on her arm. It grounded her, kept her calm, reminded her of the sword she’d been wielding since she was a little girl. 

Inhale. 

Trixie reached over, yanking the long chain cueing a loud bell to reverberate around the house. 

“Do you know of all the properties she could have picked, I still don’t understand why they chose  _ Glasgow _ ,” Trixie tugged her coat tighter around herself. “I hear Phuket is lovely this time of year.”

Exhale. 

Lucille let her eyes roam the rolling hills surrounding them, a peace in the air despite the frost, calm. 

“It feels safe,” Lucille said, quiet. “Serene.”

“I’m certain it is when you’re  _ inside _ by the fire.”

Steps grew closer to the door, a muffled shout grew clear as it was pulled open:

“—door but I ain’t carrying all her bleedin’ hat box—“ Valerie stopped as soon as her eyes found Lucille. “Lu…”

“Let me  _ in _ , thank you, Valerie,” Trixie shoved past her. “I’ll send Patsy down for my things in a minute.”

Valerie, it appeared, paid her no mind, closing the door over slightly behind her. She joined Lucille on the stoop, arms crossed over her chest against the cold. 

“I’ve thought for months what I would say if I saw you again,” Lucille started, careful to keep her eyes on Val. “What you would say if you saw me. She, that woman, was nothing to me—A-a mistake I made when I should have come to you. I should have talked to you. You set my life on fire and I didn’t—I still don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s not an excuse, never an excuse, but, Valerie...It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. Not-Not the act but the—How I treated you.”

She reached then, with that invisible string, and touched Valerie’s wrist, willing her to drop her arms so she could hold her hands. 

Valerie did. 

“I miss you,” Lucille continued, as that string found the severed end and began to knot itself back in one. She stepped closer. “Valerie, I only want you. Forever and ever, I only want you. Don’t,  _ please _ , don’t let our story end like this.”

Lifting a hand, she cradled Valerie’s cheek, “I love you, you beautiful, passionate, mad woman.”

The slightest hint of a smile. Valerie leaned against her hand. 

“Would…” Valerie cleared her throat. “Would you like to come inside?”

Lucille beamed, nodding, “Yes, yes, I’d like that very much.”

  
  
  
  


_ We’re something, don’t you think? You and me. Something remarkable.  _

  
  


__  
  


**Author's Note:**

> truly this spiralled from a night time convo with my buddy grace over on twitter and their wonderful ideas
> 
> hope y’all enjoyed
> 
> #bettyisgay2020


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